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Contributing
You can help make Shopp better for your storefronts, whether or not you are a programmer.
Before every release of Shopp, pre-release versions are made available to the Shopp community for testing. To test Shopp, you need a test installation of WordPress to play with, and a recent pre-release copy of Shopp installed.
Here's the stuff our lawyers told us to tell you.
WARNING Pre-release software has not been certified for production release. As such, NO GUARANTEES can be made as to its fitfulness for any specific purpose. If attempting to upgrade from a production release of Shopp, BACKUP ALL DATA FROM THE DATABASE FIRST. Use of pre-release software is subject to the GPLv3 license that production release software is released under. Ingenesis Limited cannot be held responsible for any data loss or loss of business due to the use of the software.
As an owner of a Merchant Support Key you have access to a pre-release of Shopp that is made available semi-regularly throughout the beta process. As the Shopp codebase reaches a point of marked stability a snapshot of the code is packaged into a new pre-release download and made available in your dashboard. You can download the latest pre-release version of the Shopp Core and any add-ons you've purchased from your Shopp Store Account Dashboard available in your account menu under Pre-Release Downloads.
If you own a Shopp Developer Support Key you can download the latest and greatest every day. A copy of the latest code is packaged into a new distribution every morning (at 3 am US/Eastern time) and is made available in your Shopp Store Account Dashboard under Bleeding-Edge Downloads. It should be noted that the stability of bleeding-edge downloads can vary a good deal more than the staged pre-release versions. Developers Access owners will have access to the Pre-release Downloads that single-site access owners have.
To participate in the beta program you need to do all of the following:
- Download a recent pre-release of Shopp
- Install and activate it in a test WordPress installation
- Play with it, develop sites with it, etc
- Submit feedback
There a number of ways to help out during the beta process, the most important of which is providing feedback. "Testing" and "Feedback" are listed together because testing doesn't do any good if nothing is reported back. Even a small report of encouragement that everything is working in the Community Forums is immensely helpful!
All of these feedback channels are available in your Shopp Store Account Dashboard.
The first and easiest way to provide feedback is to fill out some short and simple questionnaires. There are about 10 questionnaires and each has between 5-10 multiple-choice questions. They usually only take a couple minutes, so its a really easy way to let us know where we're having problems and where we're on the right track.
Get help and discuss your experience with Shopp pre-releases in the Community Forums.
A really great way to help out is to report problems you find in Shopp. Problems are reported by creating a Bug Ticket. The process is described in detail on the Reporting Bugs page. The gist of creating a good, helpful bug ticket is one that clearly defines the problem, explains the circumstances around the problem and fully demonstrates how to repeat the problem.
There are a number of other easy ways to be involved some requiring technical skills, but others that don't:
As new tickets are created they are added to an Incoming ticket bin. Unfortunately, not all bug tickets are created equally and although most often the reporter has the best of intentions, a reported problem isn't always a problem. New issues need to be confirmed before they are picked up into the development pipeline. The problem described in a ticket needs to be reproduced using the steps provided in the ticket. More details about ticket triage can be found on Confirming Tickets page.